Labour Tells Nurseries and Schools to Ban Birthday Cake
Labour has told nurseries and primary schools to ban birthday cake as part of new “nanny state” health measures. The Telegraph has the story.
Guidance issued by the Department for Education advises schools to discourage parents from bringing in sweets or cake to mark their toddler’s birthday.
Instead, primary schools have been told to promote “healthy eating habits” by requesting parents bring “fruit platters” instead or non-edible options such as bubble kits or stickers.
Parents have said the guidance saps the fun out of children’s birthday celebrations.
Stuart Andrew, the Shadow Health Secretary, said: “Instead of addressing the real challenges facing the NHS, Labour seems more focused on performative, petty policies. Blaming birthday cake is just a distraction that does nothing to fix the system and only highlights Labour’s lack of serious solutions.
“Families don’t need the state policing party food, they need leadership that takes public health seriously and only the Conservatives can deliver that.”
Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg, who has a self-confessed sweet tooth, railed against the recommendation.
The former Cabinet minister told the Telegraph: “Nanny sends my younger children into school on their birthdays with little cakes which is a pleasure for everyone, especially me as she always makes a few extra.
“Only socialists want to stop such innocent pleasures.”
The Department for Education’s Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) nutrition guidance came into force this term.
It states: “Many families like to celebrate their child’s birthday and other special events by bringing in a cake or sweets to the setting to share. This can mean that some children are eating these unhealthy foods several times a week.”
In communications seen by the Telegraph, one primary school told parents this week it had acted on the guidance. “We are not allowed to give children birthday cake or sweet treats any more due to guidance around healthy eating”, the communication to parents said, advising parents to bring in bubbles, stickers, fruit or a book instead. …
The Telegraph has identified a raft of primary schools that have banned birthday cake.
Worth reading in full.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
I heard somebody trying to excuse this by saying it is about possible allergic reactions. It is clearly about taking all the joy out of life, except for the bossy “I know best” crew.
Exactly, sucking the fun out of childhood!
Their was once a coveted child who was thought so precious that they wrapped him in cotton wool and put him in a cupboard for safety…he suffocated!
A mate of mine was organising her friend’s 50th, booked a venue and commissioned a cake from some specialists. The venue insisted on seeing a list of ingredients.
Awareness of allergies is important, although most children grow out of their allergic reaction as they get older. So how many people die of anaphylactic shock, do you think.? Thousands.? Hundreds? Ten..? Yes, about 10 a year. Most folk who bat on about allergies, frankly know feck all about it. Its just another thing to ‘nanny’ us into submission. ToFs example of the venue asking for recipes, is just another control mechanism. I’ve been in the food business for decades and fed hundreds of thousands of people without incident. Most of the ones making a fuss, and vegans too, are the ‘look at me, I’m special’ sort of people, who fixate on it. Believe me, if I was allergic to the point of potentially dying, I wouldn’t trust anyone to cook for me. I would cook everything I ate, and take my meal in Tupperware to the restaurant, if need be. As for buns. Buns do not make kids fat, especially if they are home made. Lack of activity, and highly processed foods make kids fat. Teach the kid how to make them, let them do the decoration with a bit of icing, and they will enjoy them all the… Read more »
“Several times a week“? The average kid only has one birthday a year, and not always during term time (or indeed, nursery season) So just how big have classes (or nursery groups) become nowadays? I suspect Nanny needs to go back to school him/her/itself, and learn a bit of basic maths – or is this just the new branch of Political mathematics, for which there seems to quite a demand, lately.
Under woke ideology the numpty who issued this instruction has his own way of thinking of maths.
Maybe the JAMs bring in cake for the whole school?
Oh come on…those who went to school in the 60s – did children at your school really take in birthday cake on their birthdays? They certainly didn’t at my primary school. This ‘taking in cake’ habit has got out of hand. Just have a little party at home after school for goodness’ sake, when they can all have birthday cake! Agree with Labour (eek!), except…they really don’t have to take anything in!.
Statist! You will obey. Everything within the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State.
Mussolini’s pet agenda was reestablishing an Italian empire losely patterned after the Roman empire and not claiming to worry about other people’s children eating unhealthy foods several times per week. That’s the mark of a person who always knows best how other people’s children should really be handled which got appointed to a government position, ie, a talentless busybody in a position of power he or she should never have acquired.
“The Fascist conception of the State is all embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value. Thus understood, Fascism, is totalitarian, and the Fascist State — a synthesis and a unit inclusive of all values — interprets, develops, and potentates the whole life of a people.”
That would include deciding what people’s children should eat.
It has occasionally happened that dictators with imperial ambitions have found more pressing matters to occupy themselves with.
“fruit platters”
Fruit contains sugars… Fructose, glucose, sucrose. Some contains tooth-rotting acids.
Government dietary advice over the years has been based in ignorance, ideology, bureaucratic prod-nosing and has turned the population away from a good diet of meat and two veg, with animal fats, eggs and dairy to one of largely carbohydrates, harmful seed-oils and little essential animal proteins.
And now we have an obesity “crisis” which must be corrected by more Government meddling and muddling, incorrect dietary advice and prod-nosing.
Hear hear!
Exactly. Infact I’d rather give my kids a treat of birthday cake as a very rare one off rather than them being encouraged to have banana and grapes whenever.
With a substantial lift from Big Pharma.
And Big Food – Unilever among others have made a ton of money out of “low fat, polyunsaturated” spreads.
Many families like to celebrate their child’s birthday and other special events by bringing in a cake or sweets to the setting to share. This can mean that some children are eating these unhealthy foods several times a week.
The government department which execreted this should immediately be abolished because of uselessnes proven beyond reasonable doubt. If people in government have nothing else to worry about than what other people’s children eat several times per week,
then, nobody needs them in government. That’s supposed to be about big and important things common people cannot easily handle themselves because they’re (among other things) already occupied with feeding their children and other such relative petty worries.
Those candles look a bit dodgy too. Nanny Phillistine knows best.
And it looks like they’re actually burning! This is not only a DEADLY!!! fire risk but also bad for the climate!
I can’t believe they’re being allowed to blow on the cake! We need some birthday themed masks.
“Let them eat bubble kits and stickers!” Marie Antoinette
Anyway, aren’t plastic things BadForThePlanet™?
And I would hazard a guess that – if we assume it’s the sugar which these ignorant control freaks don’t like – a fruit platter contains more sugar than a cake.
Is “guidance” a part of the UK constitution?
It isn’t law, as far as I am aware, but it seems to have the same effect as people seem compelled to obey it. And no doubt there are consequences to not following guidance.
But “guidance” is produced by bureaucrats.
So really guidance is the mechanism of totalitarian control by bureaucrats.
Every school and nursery should ignore the communist instruction.
Are we to assume that any catering for the government itself will set a good example by substituting fruit for desserts/cake, fruit juice for wine/beer?
If it’s guidance it can’t come into force.
Take your child out of any nursery that allows the Labour incompetents to tell nurseries what to do with a birthday cake. Enough is enough.
The truth is that sugar needs to be treated like cigarettes or alcohol and nobody wants to accept that yet. Just like Gin and Fags, people will defend sugar consumption, until they don’t and say they were always against it themselves.
The truth is that some people want to treat sugar exactly like other people already treat cigarettes and alcoholic beverages (not alcohol, as that’s unsuitable for human consumption).
FYI: I never eat sugar if I can avoid it because – in my opinion – it’s a completely useless substance. But any money spent by busybodies in preventing public health problems of their own imgaination would be better spent for treating real health problems and for a lot more real research on these. We know much too little about how the human body really works.